I presumed that once I had given up my main source of idle distraction that I would become some kind of creative powerhouse, pumping out dem phat words yo! Despite my obvious mastery of street patois that has yet to happen. I’m not sure I know how to live my life without making snide comments on it across various social media websites. I find myself constructing tweets in my head, tweets the world will never see, surely the saddest of tweets. Then again, what was really going to change over a long weekend? Continue reading…
Into the desert
Recently the amount of time I spend browsing the web has reached a level where its actively pissing me off. I’d put up with it if I was actually enjoying the time spent. But I dont think I am, it seems lately most of the time is spent in “vigorous” discussion about everything from water rates to (insert whatever stupid inane shit you correctly think of here). So I generally end up irritated because the two standard modes of internet discussion seem to be to simply scream your opinion at one another endlessley or engage in a giant circle-jerk (or echo chamber if you want a classier phrase) where even the mildest criticism is verboten. Both of them redolent with the implicit underlying sensation that no-one is treating anyone else in the discussion as a person as opposed to simply an anonymous source of distraction. Continue reading…
(Very) Brief thoughts on the upcoming Spring 2015 anime season
I dont really watch a lot of anime anymore. Well that isnt actually true, I still watch a fair bit I just dont watch it regularly. I tend to wait for a sesaon to complete and then binge for a month or so as I refuse to watch shows week to week. Still, I’d totally forgot about the upcoming season, clearly slipping. Continue reading…
Best of 2014 – Videogames
2014 felt like a very long year in terms of gaming, yet I didn’t really get through a whole pile of games. Perhaps my memory is going. What a sweet release. Or perhaps it was just that my pattern of play as it were changed quite a bit this year. I covered my thoughts on last year’s spending on games over here. I suppose one final note on that point was that I hit the deal hunter thing hard. Making solid use of sites like http://isthereanydeal.com/, http://www.cheapshark.com/, http://www.reddit.com/r/GameDeals/, etc. as well as (the now sadly neutered) Steam trading sites like http://dispenser.tf/ and http://www.tf2outpost.com/ and importing I got as much gaming bang for my buck as I possibly could. Continue reading…
Return to the Dungeon (Part 01)
Sorry to disappoint my more salacious readers, but while I can bust out a turtle binding with the best of them this is about Dungeons and Dragons, not BDSM. Specifically it’s about my thoughts on Dungeon & Dragons 5th edition as I read through the core books. Dungeons and Dragons was the first role-playing game I owned or ran. After reading the original Dragonlance trilogy in first year of secondary school a number of classmates and I pooled our money to purchase the basic D&D boxed set (from Toymasters in Newry). Not knowing of course that the Dragonlance campaign used AD&D (how embarrassing I know). Also now that I think about those fuckers never paid for their share. Bastards. Continue reading…
Dr Gamelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love my backlog
Last year I decided that I needed to cut down on games (being newly unemployed was an unwelcome aid in that endeavour). I decided that I would buy at most one game a month, or a maximum of thirteen games over the year (the latter condition is not a result of the first; I am aware how many months are in a year). Also I would complete said game before buying another. I failed. Well I largely failed. I failed on the first part, “Buying at most one game a month”. I also failed on the second part, “I would complete it before I buy another”. However I actually succeeded on the implicit monetary issue, I ended up spending ~€65 a month, or the price of thirteen new games over the course of the year. But that’s a different story. Why did I try and institute this policy in the first place? While there certainly was an economic issue the real impetus was my backlog. Ah the backlog, the yoke chained to every gamers neck. The Sisyphean ordeal that is arguably intrinsic to the hobby in its modern form. But before I talk about my new relationship with the beast, and how I plan to vanquish it (snicker, snack), we need to describe the beast. Or in other words, what the fuck is a backlog? Continue reading…
Dragon Age: Inquisiton – Interim musings
Well interim is somewhat disingenuous. I’m forty-five hours into the single player and I’ve also put about twenty hours into the multiplayer. If I’d one thing to say it would be, buy this game. It’s a great, though not flawless game, in its own right and it really redeems Bioware after the lacklustre Dragon Age 2 and the debacle that was Mass Effect 3. So why am I writing this then, why not wait till I finish and do a proper review? Well, it’s because I’ve run into a problem, largely of my own making.
Unemployment, life plans and Ave Imperator
It’s been a while since I mentioned Ave Imperator, or wrote a blog post for that matter. So to keep my readers (consisting primarily of my alternate personalities) happy (and because I’d a weird and clearly portentous dream about it) I’ve decided to post an update on this. Also I complain about stuff (so a usual blog post then) Continue reading…
Super shallow summary of my time with the Marvel Heroes 2015 roster
I downloaded the test version of Marvel Heroes 2015 so that I could try out some members of the roster that I was consdiering coughing up my hard earned (hah) money for. I ended up trying out every single member of the roster. Most of them were low level (the game clones your main account where I only have a handful) so admittedly you dont get a great feel for how they play, but this was more about seeing how they look, sound, animate, etc. So here are my super shallow impressions: Continue reading…
Thoughts on DLC (and how DLC+Dynasty Warriors 8=head wrecked)
To be honest I dont know why this is irritating me as much as it is, but its like a constant mental itch that I just cant scratch. So writing this is me trying to scratch it. First a little background, I am generally a big fan of DLC. As long as its not transparently exploitative or bullshit “horse armour” rubbish then why wouldnt I want more content and options for a game I enjoy? So I will generlly buy DLC for games I enjoy. However these days I normally only play through a game once (there are some noteable exceptions like the Souls games) so if I know theres a lot of DLC coming I have two choices – play the game now and then try and get another play through when all the DLC is available or put off playing the game until all the DLC is out. Both of these approaches have their downfalls, which I have fallen prey to. Continue reading…